Wildfires force ranchers with large animals to make tough decisions on whether to stay or evacuate

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As raging wildfires force thousands of Canadians to flee their homes, ranchers and others who look after hundreds of large animals face a daunting decision: to leave or stay.

Shirley Mainprize received the evacuation alert on Friday as a fire was getting dangerously close to the Turtle Valley Donkey Refuge in Chase, B.C., which she co-founded in 1999.

“You don’t move 100 donkeys quickly, they’ll panic and they’ll plant their feet, and you don’t move them, they’re too strong,” she said in a phone interview. “So we chose to stay.”

Ms. Mainprize said the team did their best to “keep everything watered down” and luckily, the fire changed direction. It was a welcome respite, but they are not necessarily out of danger, she said. They’re now looking for a place where their donkeys, many of which are old and need special care, can be safely transported.

“My husband and I have been through four fires now,” said Ms. Mainprize, who is 71. “You don’t sleep at night, believe me. You just keep your head down and keep working.”

Others were able to move more swiftly.

Sienna Hart Kellar received a call Wednesday morning from distressed friends in Yellowknife, the capital of the Northwest Territories that is currently being evacuated because of an approaching wildfire. They said the fire was coming dangerously close to their barn and they did not have enough trailers to transport their 22 horses all out at once.

“I told them that I was going to come up because I knew that they would have to evacuate,” Ms. Keller said in an interview. “They were just so in shock, they didn’t think it was going to happen.”

Ms. Kellar, who is from Yellowknife but now lives in Innisfail, Alta., rallied friends and acquaintances. By night they started the 18-hour drive to Yellowknife with four trucks towing as many trailers.

They saw the charred remains of the town of Enterprise, NWT, and drove by two active wildfires, she said, but were able to make it to Yellowknife by Thursday afternoon, pick up the horses and drive back south safely.

Residents of the places they drove through offered some help in the form of coffee and food along the way, Ms. Kellar said. “It was absolutely amazing.”

Many ranchers were affected by wildfires this season, said Kevin Boon, general manager of the British Columbia Cattlemen’s Association, which represents about 1,150 ranchers’ operations in the province. “We haven’t heard of a lot of losses yet this year but we won’t know until the fires are out to be able to get into areas to see,” he said in an e-mail.

Mr. Boon said ranchers are often first responders when a fire is reported on their ranch. If they’re not able to extinguish it, they try to move cattle away from the fire, usually on another ranch, a feedlot or an auction yard in a safe zone.

“It is very challenging if they have to be transported as you are only able to put about 40-50 on a truckload” and ranchers may have hundreds of animals, he said.

That’s what happened to Andrea Haywood-Farmer’s family in 2021, another active wildfire season in B.C. A fire on their land burned a significant portion of the ranch, where the family had about 800 cattle, Ms. Haywood-Farmer said in an interview.

She said her husband, a cousin and other riders at first tried to move the cattle out of harm’s way early in the morning each day, but eventually had to evacuate much of the herd by truck to a neighbour’s feedlot.

“It was a very stressful time,” Ms. Haywood-Farmer said, and despite their best efforts, they lost about 100 animals. Two years later, they are still dealing with the consequences of the fire, as fences and other infrastructure still need repair.

Wild animals, for their part, can only count on their own legs and wings to flee wildfires. Although it is challenging to produce accurate estimates of casualties, many don’t make it out, said Karen Hodges, a professor of biology at the University of British Columbia’s Okanagan campus.

Dr. Hodges said she is “very concerned about a number of endangered species” losing further habitat, including fishers, martens, lynx, northern goshawks and caribou.

“Any animal that lives in the forest, this is destroying their homes,” said Dr. Hodges.

This is especially true of species dependent on mature forests, which will take decades to regenerate, if at all. Climate change means more frequent fires – and hotter, dryer weather makes it harder for forests to grow back in certain areas.

“We are experiencing big climate change habitat conversion,” Dr. Hodges said. “Not just in B.C., but across the country.”